The Detroit-based Big Three automakers have delivered their restructuring plans to the Ontario and federal governments, and they want help to the tune of up to $6.8 billion.
The biggest demand is from General Motors Canada, which wants $800 million immediately plus another $2.4 billion in repayable loans.
"GM and others in the North American auto sector are under extreme pressure as they respond to the unprecedented impacts of the global credit crisis on auto sales in the U.S. and increasingly in Canada," GM Canada said Friday in a statement. "The unavailability of private credit and a low cash position resulting from restructuring investments have led GM Canada to seek government liquidity assistance."
CTV Toronto's Paul Bliss reported Friday that Chrysler is seeking a $1.4-billion, repayable bridge loan from the two levels of government. The Canadian Press said Chrysler wants an emergency loan of $1.6 billion.
Chrysler didn't include a specific number in its news release.
Ford said in a statement it would like access to a $2 billion line of credit, saying that would help it to at least break even by 2011. It also asked the federal government to support auto financing.
In an earlier development, Canadian Auto Workers president Ken Lewenza told his members in Toronto on Friday there's a "battle to wage" with the Canadian government to ensure that any economic stimulus package that is introduced next year protects the interests of the auto industry.
He noted the NDP-Liberal coalition the union supports forced the minority Conservative government to backtrack on elements of its economic statement.
"When people say, 'were we partially victorious?' You're damn right we were," Lewenza said in a fiery speech to union delegates.
"Over the next two months we could force the Tory government to look at a stimulus package that protects the interests of Canadians. We could make them look at the coalition's financial stimulus package to see if it could be incorporated."
More GM layoffs
The bailout development comes after an announcement that about 700 General Motors autoworkers will be laid off from their jobs at an Oshawa, Ont., car plant, as the company cuts back on production in the wake of a decline in its U.S. sales.
GM spokesperson Patty Faith told CTV.ca that all third-shift workers working at the Oshawa plant will be laid off starting Feb. 9.
"It's really the result of the declines in sales as a result of the U.S. economy," she said in a phone interview on Friday morning.
"This is a temporary layoff related to volume," Faith said.
She said she could not speculate on when GM employees might be returning to work at the plant, which manufactures Chevrolet Impala model cars.
"Currently, the Impala is run on three shifts," Faith said.
"We're taking off one of those shifts. We'll still be building Impalas on two shifts at that plant. It's just adjusting the volume as a result of the sales declines in the U.S."
Oshawa Mayor John Gray told The Canadian Press on Friday that the news about the car plant is hard to take -- particularly after the city has already had several other doses of bad news in recent weeks and months.
"We've gone through these types of things before, but never, ever to this extent," he said.
"But to be consistently receiving bad news -- first it was a shift at the truck plant, then it became the whole truck plant -- now it's car production."
On Thursday, Canadian Auto Workers spokesperson Shannon Devine said the union had been informed that the layoffs were "indefinite" but "supposed to be temporary."
She said plant workers learned about the layoffs while they were at work on Thursday evening.
Plant worker Mike Sadler told CP that the cuts came as "quite a shock to everybody."
He said he felt like he was "one of the lucky ones," who would be able to retire.
Many of his co-workers, on the other hand, "are in big trouble in here."
GM previously announced the closing of a local truck plant that employs 2,600 people and is also based in Oshawa.
With files from CTV's Paul Bliss and The Canadian Press
